Age 59 - The "Second Quest" at the Second Saturn Return

by Elizabeth Spring

At a birthday party last year, a ‘young’ friend of mine bemoaned turning 59 because it was so close to the even worse age of 60. “It’s now or never” she sighed, referring to both her single status and her incomplete project of creating a web page and committing to a new career which had been a ‘hobby’ for over 20 years. During the course of the evening she kept saying how ready she was for a real relationship, yet I knew how deeply she was still involved in her last relationship, and my attempts to help her solidify her ideas into a web page were frustrating for both of us.

 I was secretly glad she was turning 59 and now in her Second Saturn Return because these major transits have a way of pushing us out of the nest of comfortableness (no matter how uncomfortable it may actually be) and almost force us into beginning something NEW. Once she really left the old relationship she could begin a new one, and once she stopped being so distracted she might see what her true gifts were that she could offer on her website.

She was ready for the Quest of this Second Saturn Return passage. In the course of the evening I thought how interesting it was that she kept coming back to talking about doing the pilgrimage walk of El Camino de Santiago in Spain. I encouraged her to do that and secretly grinned as I thought of how quests and pilgrimages change us, and that she’d have lots of time on the walk to think about new ways of being.

 “It’s now or never” is the way we may feel at this age, but one of my wishes for this book is it doesn’t have to be: ‘Now or Never.’ It is never too late to set off on a Quest. Astrologers Virginia Bell and Erin Sullivan accentuate that point in their books on midlife and aging and I couldn’t agree with them more! Nothing is ever too late. The Third Act gives us multiple chances for new adventures as well as chances to bring all the unfinished parts of our lives together again at this point.

If we think of acts, like in a play, this is traditionally when we begin the Third Act of Life: when we experience the Second Saturn Return at age 59. At the first Saturn Return around age 29 we closed the first act of youth, and that early transit is one of the most challenging. When I ask my clients how they managed through that time there’s usually a long sigh. But the Second Saturn Return ushers us into the Elder years of our lives and has a different flavor. It still is a time for change making and no matter how good or right that might seem, it’s also not easy—

 All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.
Anatole France

The Second Saturn Return is often not as obvious, radical or difficult as the first Saturn Return at age 29, but it does lower the threshold between our conscious hold over our life situation and unconscious material that wants to surface. So, one of the ways it can manifest first is with a depression, out of which comes a creative impetus for a better alignment between our inner hopes and dreams and the outer world reality.

In this Saturnian climate we are also asked to complete any unfinished business. Sometimes we don’t even know what business this is until this transit arrives: it could be a health issue that needs tending to, or an aging parent that needs care, or a persistent inner voice now demanding that you make deeper changes in life direction that aligns with your Soul purpose. If you don’t know what the needed changes are, don’t worry, the events of this transit will show you what that is and make it possible for you to work to achieve new goals.

For example, you could feel your current job threatened by younger people. Your ego may complain loudly that it’s ageism and there’s nothing you can do about it. But is this true? It may be, but it may also be as mundane an issue as your lack of willingness to learn new computer skills. And you may unconsciously fear not being able to learn these skills because you were bad at math or typing in school--yet that’s been repressed.

Consider what you may be in denial about at these major transits because you want the truth, and the choices they entail. The late psychiatrist R.D. Laing poetically describes here the mind’s denial reflex:

The range of what we think and do
Is limited by what we fail to notice
And because we fail to notice
That we fail to notice
There is little we can do
To change
Until we notice
How failing to notice
Shapes our thought and deeds.

The mind is as clever as the poem. So, what is in denial at this time? Often, it’s about caring for our bodies. If we put off that yearly doctor’s visit or call to the dentist, it may not be long before we’re calling the oral surgeon.  If we don’t listen to our body’s messages now we may have some tough lessons with “reality” --that’s Saturn’s job.

However, aside from these admonitions, there is a beautiful inwardness in Saturnian times where we can feel our connection to the whole of humanity.

Contemplation is a Saturnian activity which can be really sweet at this transition. I often counsel my clients to consider writing a memoir now—even if only a dozen pages—to remember and contemplate the story of their lives. It can be a rich experience of reviewing your life from a surprising new perspective. You may find yourself bringing new insight into some of the same old stories…

Saturn is the contemplative melancholy from which creativity flows. Like the Sun pushing its way through a dark moody sky at dawn, we can only stand in awe at the power and beauty we see. And at the end of the day, it is this luminous Saturnian moment that we remember. It came unbidden and unwanted like a cold winter’s morning, but the moment changed our life. Out of it came the poem, the memory, the insight…such is the gift of Saturn.

I love the paradox of how we can feel the aloneness now as well as the sense that we are all together in the al-one-ness. This is when we can relate to the words of Ram Dass:

We’re all just walking each other home.

Many people experience a rush of inspiration in their later years: Picasso, Salvador Dali, Carl Jung Mahatma Gandhi, Marie Louise von Franz—all did some of their best work after their second Saturn Return and were creative and inventive well into their later years and right through the Uranus return at age 84.

These are also the years when we need to look at re-discovering our life direction and soul purpose. There are many ways to do that, but astrologically we benefit from looking at the signs and houses position of our North and South Nodes.

The North Node speaks to the direction your Soul longs to go towards in this life and the South Node holds your past re-incarnational story and traits that you want to move away from. The Nodes are a magnet that pulls the astrological chart together, synthesizing and highlighting the confusing bits of sometimes paradoxical information in the birth chart.

The Nodes aren’t planets but astronomical points that have been overlooked in the recent past by western astrologers. They were always used by the ancient astrologers and are used in Indian Vedic astrology; although they put a different twist on the meaning of the Nodes which is more fitting for Indian than Western psychology. Modern astrologers have rediscovered them—and I believe they are true astrological gold.

Astrological gold? Yes, like the alchemist’s philosopher’s stone, these esoteric points in the birth chart give us a base to turn the Saturnian “lead” of mundane reality into philosophic gold. An astrologer might say they offer a mercurial secret knowledge. The North Node seeks to bring wholeness to the psyche by compensating for whatever is not balanced within us. It holds our Soul aspirations and is like a guiding compass or a North star.

The description of your Nodal sign can be found for free in the table on my North Node Astrology site, where all you need to find it is your birthday and year. And there’s a description for each Nodal placement there: www.northnodeastrology.blogspot.com  For those of you who want the full story you can check out my book on amazon: North Node Astrology.

The Nodes give you more specific information on how to deal with this time of your life. And by understanding and using your North Node, your North Star, you can keep checking back to it and asking yourself if you’re living in alignment with your soul purpose. However, intuitively, you know if you’re on track or not, and a good rule of thumb is that whatever is done with love is done well. As the saying goes:

Love is the only ingredient that really matters.

Simple and complex. But for those of you who feel like you need more help at this juncture of your life, I do think the Nodes are the richest astrological point to help you. I’ll also write more on the Nodes in the chapter on Age 76 on the Nodal Return.

This is the time of your life when you become an Elder, and it is indeed time to see oneself as a wise man or woman and to act the part with quiet dignity. But give yourself a good Saturnian Reality check now. Is what you’re saying in conversation to others really in alignment with who you are and what you’re doing now? Intentions and affirmations may find a “disconnect” if these two are not synchronized. For example, if our heart desires a new partner and yet we’re aware that our habits and lifestyle leave no room for another person in our life, then chances are it won’t happen. (How many times have I had clients say that they want and are ready for a new partner but they’re still raging and unhealed from their last relationship or conversely still living with their Ex!) If you’re still holding a powerful longing or resentment towards a past partner, where’s the room for a new person?  This is the time to avoid the seductive power of our shadow and avoid scenarios where we feel our old unconscious stuff emerging--our old tapes of “not-good-enough” or “nobody loves me.” A reality check may be called for.

The gift of the Second Saturn Return is a practical wisdom combined with a more compassionate attitude, but you can’t bring naiveté to it. It’s time to get savvy. Saturn is the archetypal planet of reality that rewards in the long run for work well done, but who, as the Lord of Time, can bring delays and occasional moments of melancholy. We lose our naivete, but gain a larger perspective.

In these years some people move into more serious grand-parenting or caring for their elders, or taking classes and committing to pursuing something new, or get laid off work. It’s not always benign.

Most of all, Saturn demands we take care of unfinished business before we start anything new, so we may need psychotherapy, or have a health crisis, or get laid off from a job that wasn’t serving our highest good at this moment in time. The reasons for the changes may be unclear now.
Aging is new to us. We may have to experience the chaos of unexamined beliefs. As Kathleen Singh says in her book Grace in Aging:

Perhaps we weren’t aware of how much we counted on having a desirable appearance or an identity in a career. Perhaps we hadn’t realized how attached we had become to expecting respect for our accomplishments or positions, now largely unknown and unnoticed by the younger working crowd that has replaced us in the world. There are some affluent retirement communities where people are referred to as ‘FIPS’—formerly important people. It’s hard to be a ‘was.’

Saturn demands that we work for a new life; nothing is given, but its rewards are the greatest. At this Saturn Return we are dealing with the past choices we’ve made concerning our health, finances, family, our attitude, our self-care or lack of it. As some have said this can be the best opportunity to clean up our act. Saturn wants good structure and grounding in our lives, and this can be a time of creating a stability that’s true and honest to who we’ve become.

The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung wrote:

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.

Saturn externalizes an internal situation. Saturn brings up material from the unconscious so at this time of change and opportunity there can also be a crisis which demands that we act. Sometimes it can be subtle and not threatening but it can occasionally be more insidious.

If we’ve put off our yearly physical exams or don’t stop the spread of some nasty growth it may be too late later. If we take a stiff upper lip attitude and deny the fact that “the job is killing me” it may do just that!

A tough example of a turning point in a Second Saturn Return happened to a friend of mine who ran a “Spiritual” bookstore. She was a free-spirited woman with no boundaries who accepted everybody unconditionally. Characteristically she also left the doors and windows of her house unlocked at night. One night one of her bookstore “regulars” crawled through her window and raped her. So…even when you think you’re being spiritual you need to look at Saturnian issues such as boundaries now. This is past the time for getting your street smarts if you’ve never done it!

It has been said that as the body ages, depression and physical difficulties inevitably arise. Yet I’d say that as the body becomes less an object of vanity it’s a chance for the Spirit to rise. Ironically, it’s also a time when we may feel an uprising of irritability as a few old habits or attitudes have the chance to rear their nasty heads again. This is because now is the time to cut them off—to be done once and for all with them! You may ask yourself: why am I dealing with these same issues again The answer is: because you’ve almost resolved them! But the last straw can be the hardest. The hallmark of the Second Saturn Return is that if you deal maturely with the old pockets of unfinished business you gain the gift that will last till the end—the gift of wisdom.

And how do you do that? Priorities need to be clearer and metaphorical closets and basements cleaned. There is a need to look at what we feel may be untrue and let the illusions go, lest these old ghosts feed on us and make us bitter. It’s time to slow down and allow more sweetness and companionship into our lives, and to let the wild dogs of ambitious willfulness fight elsewhere.

And if we’re going to be ambitious, we need to do it in a way in which we can bring the fruits of our life to bear on the project—such as returning to something we already do well but doing it even better, and mentoring someone as well. With an attitude of reverence, we develop wisdom and if we acquire that, we’ll naturally be called to mentor and to pass along the gifts of learning and expertise, especially to younger folks who are stepping up to the plates in their lives now. Sometimes they are our children.

It has often been said that under strong Saturn transits one can choose between exhaustion and depression—some choice! It implies that because Saturn is often about doing hard work in the real world that exhaustion is the better choice—indicating as Mark Twain once said:

It is better to wear out than to rust out.

It doesn’t need to be so tiring. So, what are the tools needed to successfully navigate Saturnian waters? Here are a few ideas:

Be Discerning. You are at a time now when you understand things you didn’t understand even last year. Use your new wisdom to make wise choices based on clarity of intention. Dream into your future and discern the path through the woods. Here is where the quotes: ‘Know Thyself” and “Nothing in Excess” become relevant. At these times there is a necessity to pull back from the excesses of your younger years and to know what you can and cannot do.

Take Heart. Find ways to reach out to others and be humble enough to ask for advice. If your marriage is in trouble, ask yourself the questions: Is the relationship the true source of dissatisfaction or is it the repository of my own misery? How much am I projecting my insecurities onto my partner and not taking responsibility or even listening “with heart”?

Go Deeper. Superficial “all or nothing” solutions can be a quick fix and Saturn doesn’t like quick fixes. No quick decisions either: instead hold the tension of the opposites and conflicts within yourself till you see the emergence of a new idea that truly feels right. An “ah-ha.” Then, and only then, is it time to stretch beyond your comfort zones to new places of thought and action. As was said so many years ago:

Dig deep-–the goodness—is down there. And as you keep digging it will keep bubbling up.
Marcus Antoninis

Take Action. Saturn ultimately rewards those that act and depress those who procrastinate. In ancient texts, Saturn was sometimes seen as a devil who made a hand signal that said: “All that you see, is all that there is.” That’s the devil’s lie. Prove him wrong.

Someone once told me that a good rule of thumb for this time is to “sneak a little God into your daily chow.” This means different things for everyone. And we need to add the Saturnian practicality to the chow as well---a Muslim might say: “Pray to God, but tie your camel.” I say Amen to that!

Image sources:
All images: CC0 Creative Commons, via pixabay.com

First published in: www.infinityastrologicalmagazine.com, Jan/Feb 2019.

Author:
Elizabeth Spring M.A. has a degree in counseling psychology with an emphasis in the work of Carl Jung. She’s been a professional astrologer since 1992 and has written 4 other astrology books including: "North Node Astrology; Rediscovering Your Life Direction and Soul Purpose.” This is an excerpt from her most recent book: “Astrology for the Third Act of Life.” She lives in the U.S. in Wickford, Rhode Island. www.elizabethspring.com    www.AstrologyfortheThirdActofLife.com   

© 2019 - Elizabeth Spring - Infinity Astrological Magazine

All articles at a glance